I keep opening my mouth, then closing it, like a little fish.

On Friday, March 5, Powell’s hosted a book launch for THIS IS NOT FOR YOU.

I love teaching just as much as I love writing, and I feel like that comes through in this interview with the Attic’s Paige Thomas.

I never could have imagined, back in the winter of 2016, that I’d meet a man like Richard Brown, that I’d come to call him a good friend.

Back in March, when 2020 was just starting to become what it would become, I wrote an essay about how it felt to be alive.

Proof That I Exist, the Daily Write anthology, features pieces by sixty-four writers from twelve states. Jen Wilkerson, a regular Daily Writer, illustrated the book.

Every day in April and May of 2020, I offered a free guided writing session via Zoom. This session was open to everyone, everywhere, and the setup was simple: we all read an essay or poem, then I gave a prompt, and we wrote, together, for twenty minutes.

I’ve always loved The Sun’s Readers Write section—they’ve been publishing flash nonfiction since way before it was cool—and last winter, I submitted a piece about this dumpy pizzeria I’m desperately in love with. Lucky me, they chose to publish it.

For awhile now, I’ve been working on a story centered in the autumn of 2013, a season that found me reeling from a breakup, learning how to teach, and living on a dead warship with no bathroom.

I’m so honored to be one of eleven featured authors in Behind the Book, compiled by fellow midwesterner Chris Jones.